


Bibbed Egg Owls, Lot Mourns

by kaalee



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action/Adventure, Friendship, Hogwarts Era, The Quidditch Pitch: From Diagon Alley to Hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-23
Updated: 2007-09-23
Packaged: 2018-10-26 15:01:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10789059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaalee/pseuds/kaalee
Summary: "It had to mean something..."Neville is certain that the gum wrappers his mother gives him is some sort of clue.





	Bibbed Egg Owls, Lot Mourns

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Annie, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Quidditch Pitch](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Quidditch_Pitch), which went offline in 2015 when the hosting expired, at a time I was not able to renew it. I contacted Open Doors, hoping to preserve the archive using an old backup, and began importing these works as an Open Doors-approved project in April 2017. Open Doors e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Quidditch Pitch collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thequidditchpitch/profile).
> 
>  **Author's notes:** In wanting to write for dorrie6's birthday, I thought I'd write a drabble inspired by the [Mood Beans](http://www.livejournal.com/users/marginalia/517504.html) that she and jacito were doing. So, I wrote down a bunch of character names, a bunch of moods and drew one from each pile.
> 
> The result was: **Neville. Hopeful.** But this? Uh, ended up a bit longer than a drabble.

**Bibbed Egg Owls, Lot Mourns**   
**Neville, rated G, ~1090 words**

~for [](http://dorrie6.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://dorrie6.livejournal.com/)**dorrie6** ♥

~*~*~

 

_BIBBED EGG OWLS, LOT MOURNS_

It had to mean something.

The day the idea came to him it felt like a great triumph. At lunchtime, Hermione had been talking about the study of anagrams that they'd put to use in Arithmancy to determine patterns within the frogmatulation of the cheeves, or something like that. Neville often felt like Hermione spoke in a different language anyway, so when she said things that sounded like they _could be_ words, he didn't bother listening beyond that. He'd made the mistake once of asking what a "Feather Drill" was, only to be terribly embarrassed later when he realized that she'd actually said, "Pheasant Quill."

It was really better to just let things go, he thought.

The idea of anagrams hit him _hard,_ though. Their next class was Potions and Neville had completely ignored Professor Snape's lecture, appearing to write notes as he furiously tried to rearrange the letters into something meaningful. There had to be something in it. A clue, a mystery, something to tell him that his mother wasn't just... There just _had_ to be.

She couldn't have been giving them to him for no reason.

His first attempt (BROODLES BETS GLOWINB MUG) had been only to rearrange the letters within the words themselves, but then they made no sense. He did keep trying, though. It made sense, somehow -- it made sense to him in the way that plants and soil and _growth_ made sense.

Clearly, he just hadn't found the right anagram.

 

~*~*~

 

_OSTENSIBLE BOWL DUMB GROG_

Neville's pack was one his Uncle Algie had given him after his eleventh birthday, upon which he'd received the letter from Hogwarts. Uncle Algie had come over one Thursday and said he was going to get Neville something of which his father would have been jealous.

They went into the center of town, to _Lycoris and Son's Leather_ , and his uncle had said, "You need a bag for school. Your father always said that his son would have a bag to keep him well-organized, because he certainly hadn't been when he was in school." Uncle Algie trailed off, looking skyward for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was gruff, "Just... you're going to make him proud."

The bag is dark brown leather and has several compartments. It's his private pride and joy because he worried that if anyone knew how much he loved it, someone (probably Malfoy) would do something awful to it. After he started scribbling anagrams, they had all ended up in the back compartment of his bag, one he'd always saved for something special.

If this isn't special, he doesn't know what is.

Plus, the idea that he might throw away something that could prove important later worries him more than he is willing to admit. So, his bag just gets more and more stuffed with the leaves of parchment he accumulates like dust. His skin is so dry from touching parchment all the time and the parchment slices little cuts into his skin when he digs in to add more discarded anagrams to the melee.

He doesn't heal them. They feel like a settlement to him, somehow. An exchange of sorts.

 

~*~*~

 

_BESTUBBLED LINGO GO WORMS_

Well. That one is just stupid. Neville crosses it out as soon as he writes it.

 

_BLUBBERED GOING SLOWS TOM_

Wasn't You-Know-Who's real name Tom -- maybe it's like... _No._ That's not it, either.

 

_BESTSELLING BOOB WORD MUG_

Neville doesn't throw that one out because "word mug" just makes sense. He thinks, _It's kind of like what I'm doing anyway._

But it's not a clue. And, the good thing is, if any of the other boys see it, he can just point out the word "boob" and giggle and no one will bother him about the rest of his parchment.

 

_BURDENSOME BOWL LOST BIG G_

This one has the problems his earliest ones had. It really doesn't work at all because he can't quite fit all the letters in when he wanted them.

Though, he is becoming faster now. He can generate two or three while in the shower -- he can do it mentally now. Before, he'd had to use the soap to trace letters on the tiles and then Dean yelled at him to, _Hurry up, slowpoke._

Now he is the fastest of the lot in the shower because the letters sort of swim behind his eyelids. He can wash and think at the same time and when he comes up with something promising, he hurries back to his bedside table to write it down.

The other boys keep odd things in their bedside tables. Ron has chocolate frogs and other assorted sweets, Seamus has a handful of four-leaf clovers and a slingshot, Dean keeps his sketchbook there, and Harry has some old looking mirror, but Neville's is, by far, the most interesting.

When the compartment in his pack was full, he'd transfered the leaves of parchment to this drawer. Though, he did resize them first. Flitwick had actually been impressed at how quickly he took to sizing charms. Neville didn't say anything, but he knew why. Like the D.A. last year, when he had a reason to learn something, he usually _could._

He has two shrunken piles in the drawer now: the wrappers from his mum to keep for other clues and the pile of discarded anagrams from the gum-stained letters next to them.

 

~*~*~

 

_GROUNDSWELL BOMB SITE BOG_

This one feels like it has promise; it feels like he's onto a clue somehow. Maybe the stories he's been told are wrong. Maybe his parents hadn't been tortured; maybe it had been an explosion of some sort that addled their brains and they just needed the right Healing spell to snap them out of it.

Sometimes he thinks that if he can just be quicker -- if he can just come up with more -- than it would all make sense somehow. The mystery would be solved and he could stop being clumsy and stop feeling like a horrendous misfit and stop being teased about everything by everybody. Then he could stand up to Professor Snape and tell him to back off and Neville would finally stop feeling like a bloody coward most of the time.

But, really, he doesn't have time to think about all of that anymore. He has work to do. _It has to mean something,_ he tells himself as he keeps going, the stale air of the library settling around him, _It just has to._

 

~*~*~

 

thank you for reading! ♥


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